A working tree nursery that is also the city's favourite running track, full of squirrels and eucalyptus.
In 1901, the engineer Miguel Ángel de Quevedo — later known as el apóstol del árbol, the apostle of the tree — donated land in Coyoacán to establish a nursery for growing trees to plant across Mexico City.
It is still a working nursery, producing hundreds of thousands of saplings a year for the city’s parks and streets, and it is also a public park of about 39 hectares.
Quevedo went on to found Mexico’s national parks system and much of its forestry policy, and Viveros is his monument.
What it is like
Straight gravel paths under tall eucalyptus, ash and cypress, laid out in a grid between the growing beds.
It functions as the city’s principal running circuit — a two-kilometre loop that is busy from six in the morning, with several thousand people a day. There are outdoor gym stations, tai chi and yoga groups, and a great deal of dog walking.
It is entirely unornamental. There are no lawns to sit on, no cafés and no attractions. It is trees and paths and people exercising, and it is one of the pleasantest ordinary places in Mexico City.
The squirrels
Enormous numbers of them, entirely habituated, and they will climb onto anyone holding food. Bags of nuts are sold at the entrance.
This is a genuine feature of the park and much of the reason families come.
Practicalities
Free. Open from six in the morning to six in the evening.
Metro Line 3 to Viveros/Derechos Humanos puts you at the gate. The station’s second name commemorates the National Human Rights Commission, whose offices are nearby.
Bicycles are not permitted on the paths; this is a walking and running park.
Coyoacán centre is a fifteen-minute walk south, and the Frida Kahlo Museum twenty. The three together make a good day.
More Parks & Outdoors
Bosque de Chapultepec
Twice the size of Central Park, holding the castle, the anthropology museum, a zoo and several million weekend visitors.
Xochimilco
The last surviving canals and floating gardens of the Aztec lake system, worked since before the conquest and now full of painted boats.